But the ones living today never were slaves , so what the issue ? This is the example of living in the past and not moving on

carp, let's pretend that we're going to have a car race 300 years from now -- our families. my family locks your family out of the car making classes that my family goes to and it's the only class offered (and there's no other sources for learning this stuff). so my family starts making cars. my family locks your family out of the car driving classes as well because you need a car to learn to drive. all through the years my family learns to make better and faster cars getting ready for the race and we even set up race courses to practice on. eventually, we allow your family to have some rudimentary parts from a leftover lawn mower. so your family is allowed to build a car, but it's shoddy and won't come close to competing and you have to build it and learn to drive it on your own. good luck. finally, about 40 years from the end of our contest, we allow your family to do anything it wants. of course, there are still people who don't believe your family should be learning to build and drive cars, but we can sue them to get you in those classes if you're willing to fight. so we get your family all squared away to prepare for our race . . . but my family is way ahead. now the race is upon on us and i am telling you that your current family members weren't discriminated against and didn't experience the hardships that your ancestors experienced, so why aren't you prepared to race against my rocket car? your car looks like something my family was making 2 hundred years ago. come on carp, stop whining and just take your losses like a man. we're equal now.

(the above story is an outrageous example to make a point . . . carp and i have no such bet in place in case you're curious)

I saw absolutely zero racist overtones in the editorial cartoon. I find it amusing that the liberals here, who want nothing more than to continue seeing racism in every nook and cranny, are now beating you over the head trying to get you to change your mind. Not even the election of a black President is enough to convince them we have changed as a country.

Sometimes, carp, I think you dig your heels in too deep. To the point where only the very top of your head is visible, and that prevents you from seeing or hearing clearly. Argument solely for the purpose of argument.

No one is proposing that we continue to "live" in the past. But some issues are so complex and so pervasive that to shelve them and pretend they're over is to allow them to resurrect and redouble themselves repeatedly. There is dwelling on the past, and there is vigilance. Continuing the examination and discussion of harmful things is to keep them from perpetrating that harm on all of us.

Today's African Americans needn't discuss slavery and discrimination because their ancestors, not they, experienced such. Jews under the age of 40 should forget the Holocaust because they weren't alive then. Gay and Lesbians don't need to remember Matthew Shepard because, well, he was just some kid no one ever heard of before he was tortured and murdered for being Gay. What are Native Americans still so pissed about all these years after the White Man stole their land and their culture?

Dude, we're talking about keeping hate and injustice behind a barbed wire fence and under a bright spot light so it can't slink away and attack under cover of darkness. That, my friend, is NOT living in the past. It's living FOR a better future.

[quoteNo one is proposing that we continue to "live" in the past. But some issues are so complex and so pervasive that to shelve them and pretend they're over is to allow them to resurrect and redouble themselves repeatedly.[/quote]

What do you think Sharpton just did ? he repeatedly brings back the past _ something you don't understand or refuse to see what he is doing . Like I said I never made the connection but here comes Sharpton and reminds the world that blacks are depicted as monkeys <-- heavens sake Steveg don't think like a racist

Thanks for clearing that up, Matt. Racial sensitivity is exclusively a Liberal thing? Got it. So you won't mind then if I say that social indifference (or historical deaf dumb & blindness, or tone-deafness, if you will) must be a Conservative thing.

I hear ya. You guys move on. The rest of us will catch up later, and we'll bring enough rope to haul you back up the cliffside.

nobody is asking anyone to race backwards and none of us are racing that way either. i was merely trying to help illustrate how complex the issue of racism and past slavery were. if my point was lost on you then i apologize for wasting your time.

it's not even like i am asking you to modify what you do day to day or anything that requires a sacrifice on your part. i was merely trying to demonstrate how a person who is Black might have a very valid and different perspective than you or i. but now we're getting back to this, so i've come full circle with you.

It's not that simple. For a start, there are plenty of black people who are still getting the short end of the stick because they're black. And the thing about the past is that it's what forms the present. I've done work as part of my counselling training that makes it very clear that people in the present are dealing in themselves and in their current relationships with stuff that happened to their grandparents and further back - pain and secrets get handed down through families and the descendants suffer in their turn. I know some really messed up jewish friends who are bearing the burden of their ancestors actually surviving the concentration camps. I think it must take a really, really long time to get over your people being hated/treated as less than people on the scale that jews and black people and others have experienced it, especially when it's obvious that in some places the hatred is still very much alive, no matter how much you try to 'legislate' it away. It's the same in India with the caste system. On paper, it has been outlawed, there are no longer any 'official' untouchables, but it's stiull deep in the national psyche and Dalits are still beaten and killed for letting their shadow cross a higher-caste person, or drinking the wrong water. I think it's naive to believe that legislation will change people's prejudices. The need for such laws is proof of people's inability to self-govern.

As for Empathy - feel that towards me , please . Because of affirmative action I am now discriminated against' in favor of a person with color . In Hawaii there are people with color from across the world , brown , black , tan , yellow , pink you name it but if your white and with affirmative action , your dog meat trying to get a job here and white is the MINORITY here , witch is the reverse then the white population on the mainland , in short the color spectrum is larger in the affirmative action that goes against me

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